the enormous advance that has been made in the moral tone of the public service. I have put into it many graduates, some from this college, with great advantage to it, both in efficiency and in tone'; and this advance is largely due to the Missionary schools and colleges, whose influence is making itself felt throughout the length and breadth of India. The bonds of traditional custom are being loosened, the iron fetters even of caste are being relaxed by priests and pundits, in their anxiety to meet awakened minds half-way, and to prevent an open avowal of Christianity; the absurdities of Hindu mythology are hiding themselves from the exposure which the light of science renders intolerable, and all the ingenuity of men who have abandoned their ancestral faith but have not accepted Christianity, is being exerted, as it was in the first centuries of the Christian Church, in devising compromises which may comprehend (as they imagine) the best features of the old faith and the new. It is most instructive to mark how the experience of earlier ages-not many mighty, not many noble-is being repeated now; how the phases through which Corinth and Rome passed are being renewed at Calcutta and Benares; how the readiness to receive the Gospel manifested by the barbarians, and the sullen aloofness of their Roman masters, finds its counterpart in the contrasted attitude of pariah and Brahmin to the doctrine of the Cross; how even the singular appearance of Neo-Platonism has its parallel in the Brahmo Somaj and in the Aryan Somaj, now preached in British India.

We have reached the limits of our space, and are constrained to leave untouched many other topics to which we would gladly have directed the attention of our readers. The comparative value and efficiency of Associate Missions and family life deserves an entire paper to itself, and would teem with interest in hands which would pourtray the splendid work of the several university missions at Calcutta, Delhi, and Cawnpore. No less space might well be claimed for medical and zenana work, each of them a comparatively recent development, capable of indefinite extension, and calculated to reach those who had been hitherto beyond the pale of ordinary mission influence. The creation of a Christian vernacular literature in many scores of languages, starting from a version of the Bible or New Testament-the frequent nucleus around which a native literature gathers-and extending to Prayer Book and Church Hymnal, opens a field of fascinating inquiry, and we would commend especially the papers read in this section to those who care to realize its

advantages and its pitfalls. Other subjects still press on our attention-last, yet by no means least-Church organization and discipline, native agencies and episcopate, so full of peril, so absolutely indispensable to vigorous Church growth.

To those who are disposed to think that Mission work is occupying too large a share of the Church's time and energy, we would commend the latter portion of Bishop Westcott's very striking Preface to the Reports of the Boards of Missions. Much as has already been accomplished, so very much more still remains to be done, that we have as yet only touched the edge of the mission field. As yet only a third of our parochial congregations contribute to the mission cause, and the offerings of the wealthier classes-with a few bright exceptions-for mission objects fall strangely below the standard of their gifts for works of piety at home. As yet the urgency and the grandeur of mission work has not largely fired the imagination of the younger men amongst us. They do not realize what a field of enterprise, adventure, and endeavour it opens out; 'what scope for every natural endowment and Divine grace; for patience, for sympathy, for wisdom, for Christian statesmanship.' As yet we have not learned as a corporate Church-the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the greatest colonizing people in the world-to recognize that we are called on as is no other Church and nation, through missions, to win fresh lands for Christ. But the work is one which will bring with its larger accomplishment a very special blessing. We may find in the mission field a much-needed spiritual unity when every variety of temperament and service is seen to be hallowed to one end. We may find a much-needed assurance of the working and presence of spiritual power when even the weak agency. already employed is proved effectual to the pulling down of ancient and time-honoured strongholds. We may find a practical answer to many speculative doubts, and a harvest of fuller knowledge of God's purposes and their fulfilment before our eyes. Nor is it too much to hope, with the writer whose words we have already more than once quoted, that

'If we welcome in the Divine voice addressed to us in the records of our national life-Ye shall be my witnesses. . . unto the uttermost part of the earth'- our anxious questionings, our disastrous jealousies and divisions, our perilous debatings on unfathomable truths, will be brought into subjection to the overmastering love which flows from the Cross of Christ.'-Board of Missions Reports, p. 11.

ART. VIII. DALE'S CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.'

Christian Doctrine. A Series of Discourses. By R. W. DALE, LL.D. (London, 1894.)

THE general character of this very interesting book is indicated by the preface. Dr. Dale there mentions the practice of preaching 'doctrinal sermons' with which he began his ministry, gives a specimen of the lists of subjects which it has been his custom to draw up 'in December or January' for use 'during the following twelve months,' in order to avoid the danger of failing to give to any of the great doctrines of the Christian Faith an adequate place in' his 'preaching,' and adds that, nevertheless, the sermons 'collected in this volume,' which were 'delivered during the last twelve months,' formed his first attempt at a series of discourses expounding, in an orderly and systematic manner, all the principal doctrines of the Christian Faith' (Preface, pp. v-vii).

It is interesting to observe the contents of the specimen list of subjects which was among the precursors of the present more fully developed series, and to notice Dr. Dale's experience as to the interest of congregations in 'doctrinal sermons.' The list to which he refers 'includes the following topics: the Incarnation; the Divinity of Christ; the Personality of the Spirit; the Trinity; Sin; the Atonement; Faith; Justification; Life in Christ; Regeneration; Sanctification; Judgment to come ;' and 'on Great Christian Duties' 'the following subjects: Truth; Justice; Magnanimity; Industry; Temperance; Endurance; Public Spirit; Courage; Contentment.' The result of his experience is that 'doctrinal sermons,' if of moderate length,' are of great interest to large numbers of Christian people' (Preface, pp. vi, vii).

If this book served no other purpose than to call attention to the need of systematic instruction from the pulpit on matters of faith and morals, thoughtful persons might well welcome it for that alone. The value of clear and systematic preaching on Christian doctrine and Christian duties can hardly be exaggerated. It is sad to think of the time and strength that are wasted and the opportunities that are lost because of the too common practice of the clergy of preaching sermons which are without any really definite aim, and in which there is no ordered sequence of thought. And there can be little doubt that many congregations would give to

well-planned and carefully executed courses of doctrinal and ethical sermons a degree of attention which they do not think it worth while to bestow on desultory and fragmentary discourses.

But the value of Dr. Dale's volume is not to be estimated simply by the fact that it calls attention to a prevalent need. It is to be expected that the theological standpoint and the standard of religious authority of an eminent Congregationalist should be markedly different from our own; but, while this difference exists-and certainly must not be minimized - it is cheering to observe, in a book like the subject of this review, the amount of common ground. The sermons contain admirable teaching about some of the arguments which bear on the existence of God. Some aspects of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity are urged with much force. The statements on the historical growth of the expression of this doctrine contrast most favourably with much which has been elsewhere written. The doctrine was not reached' by any process of philosophical speculation on the nature of God.' The belief,' 'implicated in' the 'very life' of the Church,' that Christ is a Divine Person,' and that the Spirit is a Divine Person,' necessarily led, if 'the unity of God' was to be maintained, to 'the doctrine of the Trinity.' 'The doctrine is an attempt to assert the divine unity, while asserting the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit' (p. 153; compare the note on pp. 320-2). The true Godhead and perfect Manhood of Christ, the Personality and Divine Being of the Holy Spirit, the fact of the dominion of sin in the world, the need of redemption, the reality of atonement, the general trustworthiness of Holy Scripture, are carefully taught, and in some cases are treated with striking power. If, in some points, we are about to criticize what Dr. Dale says, we do not fail to recognize the value of very much with which we cordially agree.

At the present time the doctrine of the Incarnation is attracting widespread attention from Christians and from non-Christians. Various circumstances have combined to make it prominent. The insistence upon it as a theological truth and a moral force by teachers whose words cominand consideration; attacks which openly deny it or try to rob it of its meaning by comparisons with beliefs in heathen systems; theories of how much or how little it necessarily involves; earnest faith and questioning scepticism, have all had something to do with the interest which is excited by any mention of the doctrine. Those who have realized Dr. Dale's powers

as a theologian will be anxious to know what he has to say on this subject.

The two sermons on 'The Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ' cover, for the most part, well-known ground, but they present familiar arguments in a method and with a force which make them fresh; and Dr. Dale is expressing truth which needs to be emphasized when he points out that there is no real 'return to Christ' in a more vivid knowledge of the facts and surroundings of His human life unless it is associated with a stronger grasp upon His Deity, and that 'the real wonder and power of our Lord's earthly life remain unknown until His Divinity becomes as real to us as His humanity, and we see in Him the glory of the Eternal' (p. 102).

This recognition of the supreme value of the doctrine of Christ's Godhead does not in these sermons impair the teaching of His Manhood, and there is a very full statement on this subject in the third sermon.

In the interest in the doctrine of the Incarnation, to which we have already alluded as having been quickened of late years, the question of the relation of our Lord's two natures to one another, partly because of its intrinsic importance, and partly because of its bearing on controversies of the day, has held a prominent place. There is much which bears on this question in the sermons themselves and in the notes. Dr. Dale is careful to show that he does not accept the 'kenotic' theory which is now popular, and in a valuable note he says with regard to it

'The traditional theory of the Christian Church is, not that the Eternal Son of God, when He became Man, parted with His divine consciousness and ceased to exercise His divine powers, but that He added the consciousness and experience of a really human life, with all its limitations, to His eternal consciousness of blessedness and glory. The same Personality was the centre of two natures, the divine and the human ; exerted two parallel activities, did not cease to act as God, but began also to act as Man; was conscious of two parallel experiences, of divine blessedness and of human sorrow, weariness, and pain. He was God and remained God; but He became Man. This, I say, as contrasted with the doctrine of the Kenosis, is the traditional belief of the Christian Church. . . .

"The whole subject is profoundly mysterious; but, while we must reverently acknowledge that we are unable to comprehend it, we may without irreverence criticize any human explanation of it. What, then, it may be asked, on the theory of the Kenosis, became of those divine powers and qualities which the Eternal Son of God renounced, laid aside, when He became incarnate? Did they cease to be during the three-and-thirty years of His earthly life? Did they